Darfuris call on Sudan’s HRs Commission to stop violations

Darfuri civil society members submitted a statement to the Sudanese Human Rights Commission in Geneva, Switzerland, last week about the “situation of human rights” in the country. In the statement, the Darfur displaced, women, youth, journalists, and lawyers of the Darfur Bar Association express their hope that the Human Rights Council “will perform its obligations and duties towards the improvement of the human rights situation in Sudan”. The Darfuri activists urge the Council to take all the appropriate measures, “within the framework of its jurisdiction”, to put pressure on the Sudanese government to immediately stop the “heinous and gross violations” of human rights. Pressure must be put to pear on the Sudanese government to “honour its commitment according to the 2005 Interim Constitution, international covenants and conventions”, and immediately stop human rights violations “committed on a daily basis in Darfur: bombardments of villages and populated areas, extra‐judicial killings, sexual harassment, forced displacement, and arbitrary detention”. “We the undersigned, in submitting this statement to the honourable members of HRC, remind them, as Darfuris, we represent a mixture of ethnicities, cultures and tribes, unifying as a heterogeneous co‐existent Afro‐Arab society, which is known throughout history as Darfur. We invoke the members of HRC to consider the situation of human rights in Sudan in the light of the report of 18 September 2013 of the UN Independent Expert on the situation of human rights in Sudan, Professor Mashood Adebayo Baderin,” the statement said. The statement contains multiple examples of violations of the human rights of displaced, Darfur students studying at Sudanese universities, Darfuri living in different parts of Sudan; of children’s rights (in particular during the demonstration on 23 and 24 of September 2013); political actions designed to pit tribes against each other; the denial of Darfuri to express themselves freely as provided by the Sudanese Interim Constitution and international laws, and the partiality and lack of independence of the judicial system. RecommendationsThe statement, signed by 53 Darfur displaced, activists, civil society organisations, and lawyers recommends that the Sudanese government “must be ordered” to respect the rights of the displaced in the camps. The regime must abide by its international obligations in the fields of international law and international humanitarian law. It must desist from evacuating displaced’ camps by force, imposing constraints on these camps, as well as denial of basic services, and the services provided by the international humanitarian organisations. “The regime must stop arbitrary arrests”, and “allow international humanitarian organisations to provide their services” to the displaced “and the areas affected by conflicts in Darfur, and elsewhere,” the signatories state. “The Sudanese government must be forced to ensure fair trials, and to establish independent investigations committees into cases of extra judiciary killing during the popular uprising of 23‐24 September 2013. Special investigation committees must be established to investigate the killings of Darfur university students and activists.” The Darfuri activists urge the international community to “take clear and firm steps to stop the grave violations of human rights”, committed by the Sudanese government, its security apparatus, and proxy militias. The statement concludes by stressing that “strong measures must been taken to monitor the human rights situation in Sudan”. The signatories believe that this can only be fulfilled by changing the mandate of the UN Independent Expert on human Rights from Item 10 to Item 4 of the International Human Rights Convention. The text of the statement can be downloaded below. Photo: Student Ali Omer Musa, a sophomore student at Omdurman’s Islamic University. According to the Darfur civil society group, he was attacked by a group of security agents, who poured “incendiary material” on his body.